InnovationQuest3 by Michael Kaufman

Creating Innovation: Elegant Solutions to Complex Problems Through InnovationQuest™ An InnovationLabs White Paper by Langdon Morris and Bryan Coffman 5/23/01

Contents

Introduction What InnovationQuest Is When Should InnovationQuest Be Used How InnovationQuest Works Implementing InnovationQuest Workshops Conclusion

InnovationLabs™ LLC 257 Castle Glen Road Walnut Creek, CA 94595 (925) 934-1786

Introduction

Reducing the time it takes to understand complex issues and to make important decisions is a critical priority. Suppose you could gather a team of people together to solve some of your most complex and difficult problems in a week or two rather than a few months. You can. The purpose of this white paper is to explain how InnovationQuest Workshops from InnovationLabs do just that.

What InnovationQuest Is

InnovationQuest is a reliable method that enables organizations to compress the time required to create innovations, formulate strategy, make decisions, and solve complex problems in all aspects of their business.

Solving difficult and complex problems requires innovation and creativity. We know that these qualities often emerge when we combine different ideas, different perspectives, or different experiences in the context of an issue or a problem. This explains why it is so often useful to have “outsiders” participating in creative design work - they tend to see things differently, and these differences often enable us to reframe our own point of view, and in the process discover useful new insights. This also explains why many innovations in business are made by people working outside of the field for which they were trained. Professional training and extensive experience constrain the thinking process because they map out, in detail, the limits of what is possible. This leads to the phenomenon of “trained incapacity,” the inability to go beyond what has already been shown. But outsiders are not limited in this way - they can often see what insiders cannot, and their insights drive innovation. InnovationQuest is a strategy and a proven method for overcoming these constraints, for enabling groups of people - even large groups - to work together effectively. In a very short time, a matter of days, groups discover unexpected levels of creativity that lead to breakthrough solutions to difficult problems. InnovationQuest transforms the experience of insiders into valuable expertise and compelling, innovative insights.

Hence, InnovationQuest is a reliable method that enables organizations to compress the time required to create innovations, formulate strategy, make decisions, and solve complex problems in all aspects of their business. An InnovationQuest session can be defined as: •

A powerful tool for dealing with complex management issues that inevitably arise in the life of every company.

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With InnovationQuest, a company can engage groups of stakeholders to find superior innovative or improved strategies, products and processes, and bring them to market faster and with greater alignment and cohesion.

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A methodology for bringing out the best insights, ideas and expertise from diverse individuals.

A way to accelerate the design process, stimulating innovation, and optimize human interaction around business opportunities and problems. A way to dramatically shorten the time required for strategic thinking, concept development, detailed design and implementation. A rapid planning tool.

A concept modeling and testing laboratory. A solution and design search algorithm.

A front line tool for building sustainable competitive advantage.

Quest skills and methods can be taught and transferred to anyone, anywhere in the organization. In addition, they can be adapted to augment existing innovation processes and practices.

InnovationLabs principals have a twenty-year track record of using InnovationQuest and other collaborative tools to help organizations bring forth elegant solutions to complex problems.

When Should InnovatioQuest™ Be Used?

1. Complexity InnovationQuest should be used when the situation has a high degree of complexity and is not amenable to a simplistic or reductionist approach. It is important to explore the full scope of that complexity to properly understand and solve the issues at hand. •

The InnovationQuest approach draws from the knowledge and expertise of a large number of participants, enabling many diverse points of view and insights to be integrated into coherent wholes evoking the full scale and scope of the issues at hand.

2. Creativity InnovationQuest should be used when understanding and solving the problem requires high levels of innovation and creativity, and particularly if the situation or major pieces of it are unique and there is no standard operating procedure or prescription.

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InnovationQuest should be used when there is an advantage to be gained by compressing the time needed to understand and resolve the problem.

InnovationQuest is based on the natural and inherent human creative process. It provides a practical approach to accommodate many different human learning styles, and brings forth consistently high levels of innovation and creativity from large groups. Careful management of the work process, the work environment, and the content of the work lead participants on a path towards insights and solutions.

3. Time Compression and the Value of a Faster Result InnovationQuest should be used when there is an advantage to be gained by compressing the time needed to understand and resolve the problem. A short time frame may be required due to a crisis; or because a quick solution may present an opportunity; or because minimizing the time required is necessary to obtain the participation of key people. •

InnovationQuest engagements typically accomplish in a couple of weeks what might otherwise take many months. They do this by carefully structuring the work process, and by utilizing individual small team, and large team work to optimize parallel processing for identifying and focusing on critical issues, followed by the rapid formation of many perspectives and alternatives. Participants rapidly examine important issues in depth and detail, and get to conclusions quickly.

4. Many Participants InnovationQuest should be used when deep knowledge and the engaged participation of many people are helpful or required to develop meaningful solutions, and traditional meetings and committees are unable to effectively utilize the participation of large numbers of people. •

InnovationQuest engagements can range in size from about 10 people to hundreds.

5. Synthesis and Analysis Rather than just Analysis InnovationQuest should be used when structured dialog combines synthesis and analysis to yield far better results than purely analytical or linear approaches. Roughly speaking, analysis attempts to understand things by taking them apart and seeing how the pieces work. Synthesis puts pieces

InnovationQuest should be used when achieving widespread support for the outcomes and accelerating the implementation process are critical for the overall success of the activity.

together to explore the behavior of the whole, which is not necessarily predicted by the behavior of the individual pieces. Planning is an example of an analytic process where the attainment of the ultimate objective is divided into a series of discrete actions to which resources and individual accountability are assigned. Design is an example of a process of analysis and synthesis where all of the components are designed and then tested together to see how they function as a single, whole system. •

The InnovationQuest process enables participants to examine the subtle and hidden dimensions of the issues as well as the obvious ones, and to craft comprehensive solutions that integrate diverse viewpoints in structured iterations of work lasting 1 to 3 hours each. Insights come from both analytical and synthesis thinking, and enable the best ideas to emerge. This often leads to innovative results, as well as alignment.

6. Inside and Outside Experts InnovationQuest should be used when the people inside an organization have most, if not all, of the information, knowledge, and experience needed to understand and solve the problem. Utilizing inside resources enhance organizational competence and improves morale. When inside experience needs to be complemented by outside expertise, InnovationQuest also facilitates high quality interactions and value exchange between internal and external participants. •

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InnovationQuest workshops transform people inside the organization into true experts by enabling them to fuse their discrete, individual experiences into broad and comprehensive solutions, and along the way this turns an organization’s existing market knowledge into competitive advantage. In the InnovationQuest process, internally-originated solutions transform internal experience into valuable expertise. InnovationQuest workshops also enable people from different organizations, including people who have never met before, to work together effectively beginning almost immediately.

7. Decision Making InnovationQuest should be used when it is important to promote a high degree of mutual understanding about differing points of view and subtle nuances to produce the best possible decisions. •

Rather than settling for a lowest-common-denominator solution, people will see their best ideas complementing and complemented by the best ideas of others, leading to high levels of confidence and an easy transition to implementation.

8. Buy-In and Alignment InnovationQuest should be used when achieving widespread support for the outcomes and accelerating the implementation process are critical for the overall success of the activity. •

When the participants are also the implementers, the result is action plans that can actually be implemented effectively.

9. It’s Not a Meeting InnovationQuest should be used when it’s clear that a different kind of process is necessary to achieve needed or desired breakthroughs, because traditional processes will probably yield only more of the same old thinking. §

How InnovationQuest Works

InnovationQuest workshops are carefully designed to create breakthrough solutions to the specific issues, problems, or opportunities that your organization faces.

InnovationQuest enables individuals and groups to think outside of the box through structured inquiry that reframes the issues and questions at hand and enables participants to discover useful new points of view. These events leverage insights from systems theory and cybernetics, and takes into account the influence of architecture, furniture and decor to stimulate the creative process of individuals and groups.

InnovationQuest workshops are carefully designed to create breakthrough solutions to the specific issues, problems, or opportunities that your organization faces.

With the stakeholders and the challenge in mind, InnovationLabs designs a set of interdependent activities and experiments for the participants that allow them to view a challenge from many different angles, and create a diverse set of possible options. The activities and experiments are sequenced in an immersive experience, virtual and/or face-to-face, lasting from a day to several months, depending on depth of challenge and breadth of participation. The results from activities and experiments are connected to one another so that iterative learning and recombination can occur, leading to progressive refinement and greater commitment. As a result of this process the stakeholder community becomes aligned and the best responses emerge. InnovationQuest events integrate and reinforce these four nonlinear components: • • •

We identify who ought to participate, and engage them in the creative process. We co-design the activities and the environment with them.

We immerse the participants in the experience, channeling the creative process with carefully-prepared questions.

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We sequence and connect the activities with one another to generate insights (new perspectives), variety (useful new options), and selection (identification of the best options, and decision making).

These four elements are processed simultaneously and in parallel, leading to the emergence of an aligned community and a portfolio of possible responses.

It is worth noting that at the outset it is not necessary for the participants to have the same point of view. In fact, sincere and honest differences of opinion can be useful and important ingredients in the creative process, and so we encourage people to express and develop their differing viewpoints, and the context in which they are meaningful.

Implementing InnovationQuest Workshops

Implementation occurs in 3 steps: Preparation; Experience; Follow-up Step 1: Preparation InnovationQuest sessions are carefully designed to create breakthrough solutions to the specific issues, problems or opportunities faced by your company.

InnovationLabs works with you from the outset to identify the goals, objectives and desired outcomes, and to discuss alternatives to achieving those outcomes.

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InnovationLabs works with you from the outset to identify the goals, objectives and desired outcomes, and to discuss alternatives to achieving those outcomes. InnovationLabs designs and develops the specific approach to achieve the identified goals, objectives and desired outcomes, by applying and integrating knowledge of effective group work processes, the work environment, specific information content, and information technology. InnovationLabs design the timing of the activities and prepares all the necessary materials. InnovationLabs works collaboratively with you to develop and refine these designs before and during the worksession.

A website that includes online collaborative tools may also be developed to help jump start the worksession, by engaging participants and building knowledge and prior to their arrival. The website may also be used to accomplish organization-wide data collection with session participants, and any number of others. This could take the form of an online survey, discussion groups, online feedback to the session goals and objectives, or solicitation for advice on the issues that will be addressed in the worksession. To give you an idea of the scope of issues and problems that can be addressed, here are examples from some recent events:

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The InnovationQuest experience is designed much like an expedition, a journey along a learning pathway that has been carefully prepared to stimulate and optimize innovation, creativity, and full engagement by the participants.

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Definition of a global consulting company’s internet strategy. Three, one-day InnovationLabs events of 30 - 40 participants each over a 7 week period, with research and synthesis work between and following.

Examination of a global chemical company’s approach to breakthrough R&D. A one-day event with 75 participants.

Specification of a state-of-the-art executive meeting environment for a global hotel chain. A two-day event in 4 stages of 12 to 30 participants. Reorganization of a young company. An eight week engagement that included a three-day event for the senior management team of nine people, a two-day event for the entire management team of 30 people, and a two-day event of the entire company of 150 people.

Definition of product strategy for a start-up company. A one-day event for 15 people.

Step 2: The Experience •

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The physical environment is uniquely designed to coordinate the development, display, and sharing of the ideas generated by individuals and groups. Numerous white boards, most of them on wheels and over six feet high, provide shared work surfaces that also allow participants to reshape the environment to fit their needs, and sculpt the space into areas for individual or work group as the session progresses. Technology will be used to augment the creative process, as digital images, spreadsheets, web sites, and planning tools can enhance worksessions and support effective implementation.

Visual modeling skills are sometimes taught to participants to help them create diagrams that bring order to complex issues and systems. Sometimes outside visual modeling experts also participate.

Throughout the process there’s a buzz of activity. Teams are not isolated into separate, sterile rooms but work next to one another, trading information, models and stories to create a rich ambience and a convivial esprit de corps. Meals and snacks are integrated into the work process.

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Shortly after the end of the face to face session, and usually within 24 hours, the full documentation of the event is completed and made accessible to the participants on a secure web site.

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During the session, the reports, models, diagrams, sketches, and notes created on the white boards are captured digitally and distributed rapidly to other participants as needed. Conversations and reports are captured -all the stories, words and images are collected to help the participants as they work through successive iterations of their solutions. When appropriate, most of these materials will also be made available to the participants following the event through a secure and protected a web site. Together all these elements enable the participants to work together effectively to analyze, communicate, create, understand, and to solve complex issues and problems in remarkably little time. At the end, there is generally a strong sense of accomplishment, the satisfaction of co-creation, new friends, shared understanding, decisions, action plans … and great clarity about what to do on “Monday morning.”

Step 3: Follow-up and Implementation •

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Shortly after the end of the face to face session, and usually within 24 hours, the full documentation of the event is completed and made accessible to the participants on a secure web site.

The session documentation will often include: - A synthesis of the session. - A written summary of the large group sessions held during the workshop. - A library of digital images of each team’s work and the general activities of the worksession. - A video of each large group breakout may be provide, as appropriate. Frequently the documentation web site becomes a group portal for continuing the face to face work online. Specific online applications are provided to support ongoing dialog and discussion, focused task management for each individual, and project management for monitoring progress on the overall scope of initiatives.

To support larger projects there may be multiple InnovationQuest events staged intermittently, with each specific event responding to a natural progression of issues from the development of a broad conceptual framework through brainstorming, development of alternatives, decision making, and implementation. The specific of each session would be different according to the specific questions and issues relevant at that stage of work. Sustainable competitive advantage comes about as a result of the awarenesses,

Conclusion

Sustainable competitive advantage comes about as a result of the awarenesses, processes, and structures that make the creation and implementation of innovation as effective as it can possibly be.

processes, and structures that make the creation and implementation of innovation as effective as it can possibly be. The InnovationQuest workshop process contributes significantly to the development of innovative thinking and innovative results in large and small organizations, and thus to the creation of sustainable competitive advantage.

In pursuit of these goals, we define the role of InnovationLabs as helping you figure out which innovations will make the greatest difference for your organization, and then providing the tools and methods to enable your organization to achieve them. The principals of InnovationLabs have designed and facilitated hundreds of engagements during the last twenty years, with a consistent pattern of unexpected insight, innovation, and creativity. We are passionate about helping our clients create innovation for sustainable competitive advantage! vvv In addition to the concepts, tools, and methods described here, InnovationLabs has developed and offers detailed approaches concerning the management of R&D and innovation in both technical and non-technical settings. Many of these are described in the recent book, Fourth Generation R&D: Managing Knowledge, Technology, and Innovation (John Wiley & Sons, 1999) co-authored by Langdon Morris. More information on our services and other publications may be found at our web site, www.innovationlabs.com. You may contact Langdon Morris at lmorris@innovationlabs.com.

InnovationQuest™ and InnovationLabs™ are trademarks of InnovationLabs LLC